I am using a linksys router and have two computers connected (XP Pro PC and XP Home Edition Netbook). Both computers are set to have a static IP address on the network. Both have the same log on name with the same password, to access XP. Both have different host names that are less than 15 characters in length. Both are setup to access a workgroup with the same name. All of the things I tried were things I came across by googling. I ran the network wizard on both, pointing to the same workgroup name. The Pro one was able to see and access the Home one but the Home one was not able to see or access the Pro one. I have verified that the following services are running on both systems: Computer Browser DHCP Client DHS Client Server TCP/IP Netbois Helper Workstation My IPCONFIG results for XP Pro system: C:\ipconfig /all Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : SYS1COMP Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Peer-Peer IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : 3Com Gigabit NIC Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-8D-FB-74-43 Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.15.101 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.15.1 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.15.1 For Home system: Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600] (C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp. C:\Documents and Settings\Admin2>ipconfig /all Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : SYS2PC Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Peer-Peer IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8102/8103/8136 Family PCI -E FE NIC Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-23-8B-1F-E4-40 Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.15.102 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.15.1 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.15.1 I am running BitDefender Internet Security 2009. I have set the firewalls in both to accept the gateway and individual system's IP addresses. I downloaded Network Magic and was able to get both systems to recognize each other, as far as Network Magic seeing the Network Magic on the other system... I could even take screen shots of the other system but none of the folders were accessible... error message "network path not found" came. So I figured Network Magic was not going to work.. I uninstalled that and rebooted. I would really like both systems to be able to access each other. As of right now, neither can recognize or access the other. Any help would be greatly appreciated....

The Windows browser service isn't exactly what one can call reliable. Try mapping a drive from the Home PC to the Pro PC using the IP address of the Pro PC. It should look something like: \\192.168.15.101\sharedfolder If you can ping the Pro PC from the Home PC you can map to drives on it even if the browser service hasn't woken up to the fact that you have them networked in a workgroup.

Thank you for your reply.. I tried doing that on the Home computer. I went to My Network Places, right clicked and tried to map a network drive. When I typed in \\192.168.15.101\nameoffolder, it "attempted to connect to" that and then gave the error message "The network path \\192.168.15.101\nameoffolder could not be found."